In historical science there are things that lead people into a stupor. They are said to be intuitive, do not require decryption. It doesn't make it easier for pupils and students. For example, what is a “sedentary lifestyle”? What image should arise in the head when this expression is used in relation to peoples? Do not know? Let's figure it out.

Sedentary lifestyle: definition

It must be said at once that our expression concerns (for now) history and the natural world. Remember how the society of the past was characterized, what do you know about the ancient tribes? People in the old days moved after their prey. This behavior was then natural, since the opposite left people without food. But as a result of the progress of that time, man learned to produce the necessary product himself. This is the reason for the transition to a settled one. That is, people stopped roaming, began to build houses, look after the land, grow plants and raise livestock. Previously, they all had to go after animals, move to where the fruits ripened. This is the difference between nomadic and sedentary lifestyles. In the first case, the people do not have permanent stationary houses (all sorts of huts and yurts are not counted), cultivated land, comfortable enterprises and similar useful things. A sedentary lifestyle contains all of the above, or rather it consists of it. People begin to equip the territory that they consider to be theirs. In addition, they also protect her from newcomers.

Animal world

We have dealt with people in principle, let's turn our attention to nature. The fauna is also divided into those who live in one place, and move after food. The most telling example is birds. In autumn, some species fly from the northern latitudes to the south, and in the spring they make a return trip. or migratory birds. Other species prefer sedentary behavior. That is, they are not attracted to any rich overseas countries, and it is good at home. Our city sparrows and pigeons live permanently in one specific area. They build nests, lay eggs, feed and reproduce. They divide the territory into small zones of influence, where outsiders are not allowed, and so on. Animals also prefer sedentary, although their behavior depends on the habitat. Animals go where there is food. What makes them sedentary? In winter, for example, there are not enough reserves, therefore, you have to vegetate from hand to mouth. This is what their blood-handed instincts dictate. Animals define and defend their territory, in which everything "belongs" to them.

Movement of peoples and settlement

Do not confuse nomads with migrants. Settlement means the principle of life, and not some specific event. For example, peoples in history have often moved from one territory to another. Thus, they won new zones of influence from nature or competitors to their society. But such things are fundamentally different from nomadism. Moving to a new place, people equipped it and, as best they could, improved it. That is, they built houses and cultivated the land. Nomads don't do that. Their principle is to be in harmony (by and large) with nature. She gave birth - people took advantage. They themselves have practically no effect on her world. Sedentary tribes build their lives differently. They prefer to influence the natural world, adjusting it for themselves. This is the fundamental, fundamental difference between the ways of life. We are all sedentary today. There are, of course, separate tribes that live according to the precepts of their ancestors. They do not affect civilization as a whole. And most of humanity has deliberately come to a settled life, as a principle of interaction with the outside world. This is a consolidated solution.

Will the sedentary lifestyle of people continue

Let's try to look into the distant future. But let's start by repeating the past. People chose to be settled because this way of life made it possible to produce more products, that is, it turned out to be more efficient. We look at the present: we consume the resources of the planet at such a rate that they do not have time to reproduce, and there is practically no such possibility, everywhere the influence of man dominates. What's next? Let's eat all the earth and die? Today we are talking about nature-like technologies. That is, progressive thinkers understand that we live only at the expense of the forces of nature, which we use excessively. Will the solution of this problem lead to the rejection of settledness as a principle? What do you think?

There is a term "neolithic revolution". When you hear him, you see a mass of bearded, disheveled people in skins, armed with primitive axes and spears. This mass flees with warlike cries to storm the cave, where a crowd of exactly the same people, bearded, disheveled, with primitive axes and spears in their arms, sat down. In fact, this term denotes a change in the forms of management - from hunting and gathering to agriculture and cattle breeding. The Neolithic Revolution was the result of the transition from nomadism to settled life. That is how, at first, a person began to lead a sedentary lifestyle, then he mastered agriculture and domesticated some species of animals, he was simply forced to master it. Then the first cities, the first states appeared ... The current state of the world is a consequence of the fact that a person once moved to settled life.

The first permanent human settlements appeared about 10-13 thousand years ago. Somewhere they appeared earlier, somewhere later, depending on the region of the world. The oldest, the first - in the Middle East - about 13 thousand years ago. One of the first of those found and dug up by archaeologists is Mureybet in Syria, on the banks of the Euphrates. It arose about 12,200 years ago. It was inhabited by hunter-gatherers. They built houses like nomadic rented dwellings - round, 3-6 meters in diameter, but much more thoroughly: they used pieces of limestone, fastened them with clay. The roof was covered with reed stalks. The reliability of dwellings was the only thing in which the inhabitants of the sedentary Mureibeta were superior to the nomads. The more important factor is food. In Mureibet they ate poorer than the nomads. Depended by chance - wild beans, acorns and pistachios will be born this season, or the harvest will be insignificant, not enough for the tribe; whether a herd of gazelles will pass by or not, whether there will be enough fish in the river. The domestication (or "domestication", in the scientific language) of plant food in Mureibet took place a thousand years after the emergence of the settlement: they learned to grow wheat, rye and barley on their own. The domestication of animals took place even later.

In short, there was no food reason for establishing a settlement on the banks of the Euphrates. Permanent settlement, on the other hand, created regular food difficulties. The same is true in other regions - the inhabitants of the most ancient sedentary villages ate more poorly than their nomadic contemporaries. If we take all the regions where the transition from nomadism to settledness took place earlier than others - the Middle East, the regions on the Danube and in Japan - it turns out that between the appearance of settled settlements and the traces of the first domesticated plants, from one to three thousand years passed (that is, in the Syrian Mureibet residents relatively quickly figured out how to grow grain themselves). Currently, most paleoanthropologists believe that the inhabitants of the first stationary settlements lived significantly poorer and ate less varied and plentiful food than roving hunters. And food security, food security is one of the main reasons for the movement of human civilizations. This means that food disappears - it is not because of it that people began to live sedentary.

An important point - the dead were buried in the houses of the most ancient settlements. Previously, the skeletons were cleaned - they left the corpses in the trees, birds pecked them, or they independently cleaned the meat, soft tissues from the bones, - after that they were buried under the floor. The skull was usually removed. The skulls were kept separate from other bones, but also in a dwelling. In Mureibet, they were displayed on shelves within the walls. In Tell Ramad (South Syria) and Beisamun (Israel), the skulls were placed on sculptures sculpted from clay - stands up to a quarter of a meter high. For people of 10 thousand years ago, it was probably the skull that symbolized the personality of the deceased, therefore there is so much respect, so much respect for him. Skulls were used in religious rituals. For example, they were "fed" - shared food with them. That is, the deceased ancestors received all kinds of attention. Perhaps they were considered indispensable helpers in the affairs of the living, they were sure to keep in touch, they were addressed with prayers and requests.

Based on the finds of burials in ancient settlements, the historian-religious scholar Andrei Borisovich Zubov deduces the theory that humanity began to move to a settled way of life because of its religious beliefs. “Such attention to ancestors, ancestors, who continue to help the living in their temporal, earthly, and eternal, heavenly, needs, such a feeling of interdependence of generations could not but be reflected in the organization of life. The graves of the ancestors, the sacred relics of the family, had to be brought as close as possible to the living, made part of the world of the living. Descendants were to be conceived and born literally "on the bones" of the forefathers. It is no coincidence that burials are often found under those adobe benches of the Neolithic houses on which the living were sitting and sleeping.

The nomadic way of life, characteristic of the Paleolithic, came into conflict with new religious values. If the graves of the ancestors should be as close to the house as possible, then either the house should be immovable or the bones should be transferred from place to place. But reverence for the birth element of the earth required stationary burials - the embryo of new life, the buried body, could not be removed from the womb as necessary. And so the only thing left for the protoneolithic man was to settle to the ground. The new order of life was difficult and unusual, but the spiritual upheaval that took place in the minds of people about 12 thousand years ago, required a choice - either to neglect the race, communion with ancestors for the sake of a more well-fed and comfortable wandering life, or to associate yourself forever with the graves of indissoluble ancestors by the bonds of the unity of the earth. Some groups of people in Europe, in the Near East, in Indochina, on the Pacific coast of South America have made a choice in favor of the genus. It was they who laid the foundation for the civilizations of the new Stone Age, ”concludes Zubov.

The weak point of Zubov's theory is, again, food impoverishment. The ancient people, who stopped roaming, it turns out, believed that their ancestors and gods wish them a half-starved existence. To come to terms with their food distress, food shortages, they had to believe. "The ancestors-skull-bones blessed us for starvation, for a thousand years of starvation," - taught the parents of their children. This is how it comes out of Zubov's theory. It couldn't be! After all, they prayed to the bones for the bestowal of great blessings: to save them from the attack of predators, from the thunderstorm, so that the upcoming fishing and hunting would pass successfully. Rock paintings of that period and earlier - many wild animals on the walls and ceilings of caves - are interpreted as a plea for a successful hunt, abundant prey.

"Paleolithic Venuses" - they were used to get the support of the forces of Life. Incredibly, it is impossible that in various regions of the world people decide that the gods, higher powers want them to settle down and starve. Rather, on the contrary: the settled tribe, buried the bones of their ancestors under the floors of their homes, realizes that their diet has decreased, and decides that such is the punishment from the ancestors - because they violated the way of life, nomadism, adopted by the ancestors, among thousands of generations of ancestors back in time. Not a single tribe would voluntarily settle if this led to food problems. Voluntarily - no. But if they were forced, forced - yes.

Violence. Some tribes were forcibly forced to settle others. For the vanquished to guard the sacred bones. One tribe won, beat another, forced the defeated to guard the skulls and skeletons of their deceased ancestors as an indemnity. Bones in the ground, skulls on shelves - the defeated, the oppressed "feed" the skulls, spend holidays for them - so that dead fathers would not be bored in the next world. Where is the safest place to store the most valuable? At home, yes. Therefore bones under the floor, skulls on the shelves of round dwellings.

Probably, not only for the protection of the dead were used by the victors of the vanquished. In the oldest sedentary settlement in Europe - Lepenski Vir, in Serbia, on the banks of the Danube, it appeared about 9 thousand years ago - the oldest part of the settlement had a seasonal character. A beaten tribe or the weakest of a tribe were forced to settle for several months a year in order to do some work in the interests of the strongest. They produced axes or spears, were engaged in harvesting wild plants. We worked in the interests of the strongest.

Over time, the winners, the strongest, also moved to settled life - most likely, when they realized that with the help of the vanquished, it was possible to solve all their needs in general. Of course, special dwellings were built for the owners of the settlement: larger in area, with altars, additional premises. Among the remains of one of the oldest settlements in Jericho, a tower of 8 meters in height and 9 meters in diameter was found. The tower is about 11,500 thousand years old. Ran Barkai, a senior lecturer in the Department of Archeology at Tel Aviv University, believes that it was built to intimidate. Vyacheslav Leonidovich Glazychev, a professor at the Moscow Architectural Institute, shares the same opinion: "The tower is also a kind of castle that dominates the entire town and opposes it to ordinary inhabitants with a power that has separated from them." The Jericho Tower is an example of the fact that the strongest also began to move to a settled way and control those whom they forced to work for themselves. Subordinates, exploited, for sure, rebelled, tried to get rid of the rulers. And the rulers came up with the idea to sit in a powerful tower, to hide in it from an unexpected attack, from a night uprising.

Thus, coercion, violence is at the root of the emergence of settled life. Sedentary culture initially carries a charge of violence. And in its further development, this charge increased, its volumes grew: the first cities, states, slavery, the more and more sophisticated destruction of some people by others, the deformation of religious thinking in favor of submission to kings, priests, officials. At the root of settledness is the suppression of human nature, the natural human need - nomadism.

“Without Compulsion, no settlement could be established. There would be no overseer over the workers. Rivers would not overflow, ”- a quote from the Sumerian text.

Feb 16, 2014 Alexander Rybin

The reason for the transition of a person to a sedentary life.
To take on the coverage of this topic, I was prompted by a false, as it seems to me, understanding of the historical science of the processes that led people to a settled life, and the emergence of agriculture and animal husbandry. Currently, it is believed that the main reason for the transition of people to a sedentary life was the development of ancient society to such a level at which people began to understand that food production is more promising than hunting and gathering. Some authors even call this period the first intellectual revolution of the Stone Age, which allowed our ancestors to rise to a higher stage of development. Yes, of course, at first glance it seems that this is so, because in a sedentary life, people had to invent more and more new tools, necessary for him, and devices for farming, or animal husbandry. From scratch, come up with ways to preserve and recycle the resulting crop and build long-term housing. But to the most important question, what made the ancient people radically change their lives, scientists do not give an answer. But this is the most important question that needs to be answered, because only then it will become clear why people began to live in one place, took up agriculture and animal husbandry? To understand the root cause that prompted people to change their lives, it is necessary to return to a very distant past, when a reasonable person began to use the first tools of labor. People of that time were still not much different from wild animals, therefore, as an example of the beginning of the use of tools by ancient people, one can cite modern Chimpanzees, who are also still at this initial stage of development. As you know, Chimpanzees use smooth stones rounded with water to break the strong shells of nuts, and tools found on the shore of the reservoir, they transfer them over considerable distances to the place of their use. Usually it is a larger stone, which is an anvil, and a smaller pebble, which they use as a hammer. Sometimes a third stone is also used, which serves as a support to securely hold the anvil in the ground. It is clear that in this case, the impossibility of gnawing the strong shell of the nuts with their teeth led to the use of stone tools by the monkeys. Apparently in the same way, the first people began to use tools of labor, looking for suitable stones created by nature itself. The first people lived, most likely also like Chimpanzees, in small family groups, in a certain territory and had not yet led a nomadic lifestyle. So when, and why, did ancient people adopt a nomadic lifestyle? Most likely, this happened due to a change in the diet of ancient people, and his transition, from the use of mainly plant foods, to the consumption of meat. Such a transition to a meat diet, most likely, occurred as a result of rather rapid climate changes in the habitats of ancient humans, and as a result, led to a decrease in traditional plant food sources. Natural changes forced the ancient man to the fact that originally ate mainly plant foods, they were forced to turn into omnivorous predators. It is likely that initially people, who did not have sharp fangs and claws, hunted small herbivorous animals, constantly moving from one pasture to another in search of food. Apparently already at this stage of the first human migrations, following the migration of animals, individual families began to unite into groups, because this way it was possible to hunt animals more successfully. The desire to include, in the number of hunting prey, larger and stronger animals, which it was impossible to cope with with bare hands, led to the fact that people were forced to invent new tools specially adapted for this. This is how the first weapon created by the Stone Age man appeared, the so-called pointed, or stone chopper, which allowed him to hunt larger animals. Then people invented a stone ax, knife, scraper, spear with a bone or stone tip. Following the herds of migrating animals, people began to develop territories where summer heat was replaced by winter cold, and this required the invention of clothing to protect from the cold. Over time, man figured out how to make fire and use it for cooking, protecting from the cold and hunting wild animals. Some of the people who wandered around the water bodies have mastered a new source of food, I mean fish, all kinds of mollusks, algae, bird eggs, and the waterfowl itself. To do this, they had to invent such a tool as a spear with a serrated end for catching fish and a bow that allowed them to hit prey at a considerable distance. The man had to figure out how to make a boat from a solid tree trunk. Observing the work of a spider weaving a web, apparently told people how to make a net, or weave a trap from thin rods for catching fish. Having mastered such a near aquatic way of life, people naturally lost the opportunity to freely roam the earth, since they were attached to a specific reservoir, because of the large number of devices they had, which became difficult to transfer from one place to another. Over time, all the tribes of hunters and gatherers who roamed after herds of wild animals found themselves in exactly the same situation. If at first, people could move freely, from one place to another armed only with a stone ax or ax, then over time, when they had a lot of material values, it became much more difficult to do this. Now they had to carry with them several types of weapons, various tools, earthen and wooden dishes, a stone grain grinder for grinding wild-growing grains, acorns or nuts. They had to move to a new camp site, in the opinion of people, animal skins that served them as bedding, clothing, water and food supplies, if the path lay through unfamiliar terrain. Among the things a person needs, one can also name figurines of gods, or totem animals that people worshiped and many other things. For these purposes, people invented, and apparently weaved, from thin rods, special back baskets, such as a backpack, and also used stretchers, or drags made of two poles on which the movable load was attached. A clear example of how it looked in antiquity can serve as the existing tribes from the Amazon River basin, living in the Stone Age, but having already lost the ability to roam freely, from place to place, due to the large number of objects used and the long-term dwellings they built. Having occupied their own niche, and without changing their lives, these tribes stopped in their development at the level of the people of the Stone Age, who are not yet leading agriculture, and are limited so far only to the rudiments of animal husbandry. The living Australian aborigines found themselves in about the same situation, only the latter, continuing to live in the Stone Age, and due to the small number of tools, did not even switch to a sedentary lifestyle. At some stage of evolution, people increasingly began to face the question of what to do in this situation further, because it became more and more difficult to transfer all your belongings from place to place. From that moment on, the development of the tribes went in two different ways. Some tribes who managed to tame a horse or camel were able to remain nomadic, because the use of the power of these animals allowed them to transport all their belongings from one place to another. The further invention of the wheel and the appearance of carts was the result of the evolution of the nomadic way of life. In approximately the same way, all the nomadic peoples of antiquity known to us appeared. Of course, it should be noted that the technical development of such peoples was limited by how much payload they could move from place to place. The tribes that failed to tame large pack animals began to lead a sedentary lifestyle, so they had to look for ways to feed themselves, living in one place. Such tribes were forced to look for all new ways of obtaining food, engaging in agriculture, or raising small livestock. Nomadic peoples who traveled over long distances could only engage in breeding small animals, driven from one pasture to another. But the nomads had an additional opportunity to simultaneously engage in trade. But on the other hand, they were limited in further technical development, due to their specific way of life. Sedentary peoples, on the contrary, had more opportunities in terms of technical development. They could build large houses, various outbuildings, improve the tools they needed to cultivate the land. Find ways to preserve or recycle harvested crops, and invent and manufacture increasingly sophisticated household items. A person who settled on the ground, in a creative sense, was not limited by the number of pack animals, or the size of a carriage capable of accommodating only a certain amount of cargo. Therefore, it seems quite logical that over time, nomadic peoples, such as the Polovtsy, or the Scythians, simply disappeared from the historical arena, giving way to more technically advanced agricultural cultures. Concluding the consideration of this issue, it should be noted that in the development of human society, several separate stages are visible at once, through which the ancient man had to go. The first such stage can be considered the period when our ancestors did not yet make tools of labor, but used stones, created by nature, as tools, as modern Chimpanzees. During this very long period, people were still sedentary, occupying one specific feeding area. The next stage began when people were forced to master a new source of food. This refers to the transition from a diet primarily plant-based in favor of a meat-based diet. It was during this period that people began to roam following the migration of herbivores. This way of life led to the fact that small groups of people began to unite into tribes for more successful hunting of herd animals. At the same time, people mastered the manufacture of stone tools, necessary for them to successfully hunt for larger prey. Thanks to this nomadic way of life, people, following their potential food, at this stage, managed to populate all areas of the land suitable for life. Then, as a result of technological progress, when people began to produce more and more things necessary for their life, the tribes burdened with household belongings, it became more and more difficult to lead the former nomadic way of life, following the herds of wild animals. As a result, people were forced to switch to the so-called semi-nomadic lifestyle. Now they built temporary hunting camps, and continued to live in them as long as the surrounding nature could provide quality food for the entire tribe. With the depletion of food resources at the previous place of residence, the tribe moved to a new site, transferring all the things they needed there and equipping a new camp there. Apparently at this stage in the life of ancient society, attempts were made to domesticate plants and domesticate wild animals for the first time. Some tribes that have managed to domesticate wild horses, camels, or reindeer, have again been able to lead the old nomadic way of life. As we can see from further history, many tribes took advantage of this opportunity, later turning into nomadic peoples. The rest of the tribes, who achieved results in agriculture and cattle breeding, but burdened with a large number of tools, and tied to a certain piece of land, had to stop regular migrations and live already a sedentary life. Apparently something like this, for several tens of thousands of years, there was a gradual transition of people,
from nomadic to sedentary lifestyle. Every modern person who has read this article can look around him and see how many different things surround him. It is clear that moving with such a large pile of goodness to a new place is no longer realistic at the present time. After all, even moving from one apartment to another is considered by the people almost a disaster, comparable only to a flood or fire.

Political organization becomes more complex with the transition to a settled and productive economy (agriculture and animal husbandry). In archeology, this phenomenon is often called the "Neolithic revolution". The transition to a manufacturing economy has become an important, revolutionary milestone in the history of human civilization. Since that time, the early primitive local groups have replaced the stable, sedentary forms of the community, the number of which ranged from many tens to several thousand people. Within the communities, inequality increased, age statuses, property and social differentiation arose, and the rudiments of the power of elders appeared. Communities united in unstable supra-communal formations, including tribes.

Early and advanced agricultural societies were characterized by a wide range of forms of political leadership. The most interesting example of leadership in early agricultural societies is the bigman institution (from the English, bigman). The fundamental difference between the power of the big men and the power of the leaders is the non-inherited nature of their social status. Big men, as a rule, were the most initiative people who stood out for their varied abilities, had physical strength, were distinguished by their hard work, were good organizers and were able to settle conflicts. They were brave warriors and convincing orators, some of them were even credited with special magical abilities, the ability to conjure. Thanks to this, the big men increased the wealth of their families and community groups. However, the increase in wealth did not automatically lead to an increase in social positions.

The source of the big man's high status is his prestige associated with the organization of mass feasts and distributions. This allowed him to create a network of addicts, which further contributed to his prosperity. However, the influence of the big men was not stable. It was constantly threatened with the loss of its adherents. Bigman was forced to demonstrate his high status, spend significant funds on organizing collective ceremonies and feasts, and give gifts to his fellow tribesmen. “Bigman does not save up to use it for himself alone, but in order to distribute this wealth. Every important event in a person's life - wedding, birth, death, and even the construction of a new house or canoe - is celebrated with a feast, and the more feasts a person arranges, the more generously he presents treats, the higher his prestige. "

Political power and bigman status were personal, i.e. could not be inherited, and are unstable, since they depended solely on the personal qualities of the candidate, his ability to ensure his prestigious position through the distribution of massive gifts.

American anthropologist Marshall Salins(p. 1930) notes such an aspect of the life and work of a bigman in Melanesian society as an open competition of statuses. The person who has ambitions and makes his way to the big men is forced to intensify his own work and the work of members of their households. He quotes Hogbin as saying that the head of the men's house in the Busam of New Guinea “had to work harder than anyone else to replenish his food supplies. Anyone claiming honor cannot rest on laurels, he must constantly hold great festivities, building up trust. " It is generally accepted that he has to "work hard" day and night: "his hands are constantly in the ground, and drops of sweat are constantly dripping from his forehead." The idea behind the festivities was to raise one's reputation, increase the number of supporters, and make others indebted. Bigman's personal career was of general political significance. When he goes beyond the narrow group of his supporters and begins to sponsor public events, with the help of which he strengthens the prestige, "makes a name for himself in a wide circle." “Big men with their consumer ambitions,” writes M. Salins, “are the means by which a segmented society,“ decapitated ”and broken up into small autonomous communities, overcomes this split, at least in the area of ​​food supply, and forms a wider circle of interaction. and a higher level of cooperation. Taking care of his own reputation, the Melanesian Bigman becomes the concentrating element of the tribal structure. "

Tribe. The concept of "tribe" can be interpreted in two ways: as one of the types of ethnic communities in the early stages of the historical process and as a specific form of social organization and governance structure characteristic of primitiveness. From the point of view of political anthropology, the second approach to this term is important. The tribe is a supra-communal political structure. Each segment of the tribal organization (community, lineage, patronymic, etc.) is economically independent. Leadership in tribes, as in local groups, is personal. It is based solely on individual ability and does not imply any formalized position.

Scientists distinguish two historical forms of tribal organization: early and "secondary". The early, archaic tribes were amorphous, without clear structural boundaries and general leadership, a set of segments of various taxonomic levels. The main features of these tribes were: kinship relations, a single habitat, a common name, a system of rituals and ceremonies, and their own linguistic dialect. For their designation, the terms are used: "tribalism", "maximum community", "accumulation of local groups", "primary tribe", etc.

As an example, consider the Nuer tribes, which were described by the British anthropologist Edvan Evans-Pritchard(1902-1973). The Nuer tribes are segmented. The largest segments Evans-Pritchard calls the primary divisions of the tribe; they, in turn, are divided into secondary divisions of the tribes, and those into tertiary divisions. The tertiary department of the tribe encompasses several village communities, which consist of kinship and house groups. Thus, the Lu tribe is divided into primary divisions of Huns and Mors. The primary division of the gunas is divided into the secondary divisions rum-jok and gaatbal. The gaatbal secondary division, in turn, is divided into leng and nyarkwach tertiary divisions.

The smaller the segment of the tribe, the more compact its territory, the more united its members, the more diverse and stronger their general social ties, and therefore the stronger the feeling of unity. The Nuer tribes are characterized by the principles of segmentation and opposition. Segmentation means dividing a tribe and its divisions into segments. The second principle reflects opposition between tribal segments. Evans-Pritchard writes about this: “Each segment is also split, and there is opposition between its parts. The members of each segment join together to war against adjacent segments of the same order and join with these adjacent segments against larger departments. "

The “secondary” form of the tribe is politically a more integrated structure. It had embryonic organs of general tribal authority: a popular assembly, a council of elders and military and (or) civilian leaders. L. Morgan has outlined this type of society in books; "League of Hodenosauni, or Iroquois" and "Ancient Society". The researcher singled out the following signs of the Iroquois tribe: a single territory, name, dialect of language, beliefs and culture, the right to assert and displace peaceful leaders - sachems, military leaders and others. The tribes were divided into two exogamous groups - phratries, the latter consisted of clans and smaller structural subdivisions. There were five Iroquois tribes in total. They could field a total of 2,200 warriors.

The tribal council consisted of clan leaders, military leaders, and elderly women. All meetings were held in public, in the presence of adult members of the tribe. At the council, disputes between tribal divisions were resolved, wars were declared, peace agreements were concluded, relations with neighbors were settled, leaders were elected. From among the elderly warriors who had distinguished themselves in wars and had a reputation for being generous and wise, the oldest woman proposed for the office of sachem. After approval at the tribal council and at the conference council, the sachem received a symbol of his power - horns. If he did not cope with his duties, then his horns were “broken off” - he was deprived of his sacred status. The chiefs were also elected at the council of the tribal league. The supreme leader of the conference was elected from one of the tribes. Ethnographic examples of “secondary” tribes can also be considered many of the societies of nomadic pastoralists of North Africa and Eurasia (Arabs, Tuaregs, Pashtuns, etc.).

In the 60s. XX century the view of the tribe as a universal institution of the primitive era has been criticized in Western anthropology. Currently, most foreign researchers adhere to the point of view Mortona Frida(1923-1986), according to which tribes arose only as a result of external pressure from developed state societies on stateless ones, and this form of social organization is exclusively secondary in nature. In accordance with this opinion, the "tribe" is not included in the mandatory list of forms of transition of a political organization from local groups to statehood.

In this regard, it should be noted that the concept of a tribe is important for understanding the characteristics of the chiefdom, which was the next step on the path to statehood. Tribal society is a less complex form of government and power than the chieftaincy. In the chiefdom, the people are removed from government, while in a tribal society, the popular assembly, along with the council of elders and the institution of leaders, is an important tool for developing and making decisions. In the chiefdom there is a hierarchy of power, social stratification, a redistribution system, and the cult of leaders is developing. The tribe is characterized by a more declared than a real hierarchy, a more egalitarian social structure, the absence of a redistributive system, the institution of leaders is just beginning to take shape.

Chiefdom. Chiefdom theory (from the English, chiefdom) developed by representatives of Western political anthropology. Within the framework of this concept, chiefdom is seen as an intermediate stage between stateless and state societies. The most fundamental aspects of the chiefdom theory were formulated in the works of E. Service and M. Salins. The history of the discovery and subsequent development of the chiefdom theory is described in detail in the works of Russian researchers S.L. Vasiliev and N.N. Kradin. The concept of "chiefdom", or "chiefdom", entered the scientific apparatus of Russian researchers and was reflected in the scientific and educational literature.

Chiefdom can be defined as a form of sociopolitical organization of late primitive society, characterized by centralized governance, social and property inequality, a redistributive system of redistribution, ideological unity, but the absence of a repressive coercive apparatus.

The main characteristics of a chiefdom are as follows:

  • a) the presence of supralocal centralization. In the chiefdoms, there was a hierarchical decision-making system and an institution of control, but the existing authorities did not have a coercive apparatus and did not have the right to use force. The ruler of the chiefdom had limited powers;
  • b) chiefdoms are characterized by a fairly clear social stratification and limited access simple community members to key resources; there is a tendency towards separation of the elite from simple masses into a closed estate;
  • c) an important role in the economy chiefdoms played redistribution, which meant redistribution surplus product;
  • d) the chiefdoms are characterized by a common ideological system, a common cult and rituals.

Chiefdoms are characterized by social differentiation. The simplest chiefdoms were divided into leaders and common members. In more stratified societies, there were three main groups: the upper one, hereditary leaders and other categories of the elite; middle - free full members; the lowest - various groups of persons with no rights and no rights.

One of the traditional societies of North-East Tanzania in the second half of the 19th century can be cited as an example. The chiefdoms here usually consisted of communities of 500-1000 people. Each of them was led by the chief's assistants (valolo) and elders (huachili), who connected communities with central settlement. General number these persons did not exceed several dozen people. Community members brought gifts to the leader with food, cattle, beer. For this, the leader provided his subjects with magical protection in relations with the gods, protected them from at

Sedentary and domestication, together and separately, have transformed human life in a way that is still affecting our lives today.

"Our Earth"

Sedentary lifestyles and domestication represent not only technological changes, but also worldview changes. Land has ceased to be a free commodity, available to everyone, with resources randomly scattered over its territory - it has become a special territory belonging to someone or a group of people on which people grow plants and livestock. Thus, a sedentary lifestyle and a high level of resource extraction leads to the emergence of property, which was a rarity in previous societies of gatherers. Burials, heavy goods, permanent housing, grain processing equipment, and fields and livestock tied people to their place of residence. Human impact on the environment has become stronger and more noticeable after the transition to a sedentary lifestyle and the growth of agriculture; people began to change the surrounding area more and more seriously - to build terraces and walls to protect against floods.

Fertility, sedentary lifestyle and nutritional system

The most dramatic consequence of the transition to a sedentary lifestyle is changes in female fertility and population growth. A number of different effects have collectively led to an increase in the population.

Fertility Distribution Intervals

Among modern gatherers, female pregnancy occurs every 3-4 years, due to the long period of breastfeeding characteristic of such communities. Duration does not mean that babies are weaned at 3-4 years of age, but that breastfeeding will last as long as the baby needs it, even in cases of several times an hour (Shostak 1981). This feeding stimulates the secretion of hormones that suppress ovulation (Henry 1989). Henry points out that “the adaptive value of such a mechanism is evident in the context of nomadic gatherers, because one child who needs to be cared for for 3-4 years creates serious problems for the mother, but a second or third during this interval will create an unsolvable problem. for her and jeopardize her health ... ”.
There are many more reasons why gatherers feed for 3-4 years. Their food system is rich in protein, also low in carbohydrates, and lacks soft foods that are easy for babies to digest. In reality, Marjorie Shostak noted that among the Bushmen, modern gatherers in the Kalahari Desert, food is rough and difficult to digest: “To survive in such conditions, a child must be over 2 years old, preferably much older” (1981). After six months of feeding, the mother has no food to find and prepare for the infant in addition to her own milk. Among Bushmen, babies over 6 months old are given solid, already chewed or chopped food, complementary foods that begin the transition to solid foods.
The length of time between pregnancies serves to maintain long-term energy balance in women during their reproductive years. In many foraging communities, increasing the caloric intake of feeding requires mobility, and this high-protein and low-carbohydrate feeding style can keep the mother's energy balance low. In cases where food extraction is limited, pregnancy and lactation can be a net waste of energy, leading to a sharp decline in fertility. Under these circumstances, it gives the woman more time to regain her fertility. Thus, the period when she is neither pregnant nor nursing becomes necessary to build her energy balance for future reproduction.

Fertility Rate Changes

In addition to the effects of breastfeeding, Allison notes the age, nutritional status, energy balance, diet and exercise of women during this period (1990). This means that intense aerobic exercise can lead to changes in your period (amenorrhea), but less intense aerobic exercise can lead to poor fertility in less obvious but important ways.
Recent studies of North American women who require high levels of endurance in exercise (long distance runners and young ballet dancers, for example) have indicated some changes in fertility. These data are related to a sedentary lifestyle, because the level of activity of the studied women corresponds to the level of activity of women in modern collecting communities.
The researchers found 2 different effects on fertility. Young, active ballerinas experienced their first menstrual period at 15.5 years old, much later than the inactive control group, whose members experienced their first menstruation at 12.5 years old. The high level of activity also appears to affect the endocrine system, decreasing the time a woman is able to conceive by 1-3 times.
Summing up the impact of gathering on female fertility, Henry notes: “It appears that a number of interrelated factors associated with the nomadic gatherer lifestyle are exerting natural birth control and possibly explaining the low population density in the Paleolithic. In nomadic gatherer communities, women are likely to experience the same long periods of breastfeeding in raising a child as the high energy leaks associated with foraging and occasional wandering. In addition, their diet, which is relatively high in protein, keeps fat levels low, thereby reducing fertility. ” (1989)
With an increase in sedentary life, these boundaries of female fertility were weakened. The period of breastfeeding has been reduced, as has the amount of energy expended by the woman (Bushman women, for example, walk 1,500 miles a year on average carrying 25 pounds of equipment, collected food, and, in some cases, children). This does not mean that a sedentary lifestyle is physically undemanding. Agriculture requires its own hard work, from both men and women. The only difference is in the types of physical activity. Long-distance walking, carrying heavy loads and children were replaced by sowing, cultivating the land, collecting, storing and processing grain. A diet rich in cereals has significantly changed the ratio of protein to carbohydrates in the diet. This altered prolactin levels, increased positive energy balance, and led to faster growth in babies and an earlier onset of menstruation.

The constant availability of grains allowed mothers to feed their babies soft, high-carb cereals. Analysis of children's feces in Egypt showed that a similar practice was used, but with root crops, on the banks of the Nile 19,000 years ago ( Hillman 1989). The effect of cereals on fertility is noted Richard Lee among the sedentary Bushmen who have recently begun to feed on grain and are experiencing marked increases in fertility. Rene Pennington(1992) noted that the increase in the reproductive success of the Bushmen is possibly related to a decrease in infant and child mortality.

Drop in Nutritional Quality

The West has long viewed agriculture as a step forward from gathering, a sign of human progress. Although, however, the early farmers did not eat as well as the gatherers.
Jared Diamond(1987) wrote: “When farmers focus on high-carbohydrate crops such as potatoes or rice, the wild plant and animal mix in the hunter / gatherer diet provides more protein and a better balance of other nutrients. One study noted that Bushmen consume an average of 2,140 calories and 93 grams of protein per day, which is significantly higher than the recommended daily intake for those of their height. It is almost impossible that Bushmen who feed on 75 species of wild plants could starve to death, as happened to thousands of Irish farmers and their families in 1840. ”
In skeletal studies, we arrive at the same point of view. Late Paleolithic skeletons found in Greece and Turkey averaged 5 feet 9 inches for males and 5 feet 5 inches for females. With the adoption of agriculture, the average height has decreased - about 5,000 years ago, the average height of a man was 5 feet 3 inches, and a woman was about 5 feet. Even modern Greeks and Turks are not, on average, as tall as their Paleolithic ancestors.

Increased hazard

Roughly speaking, agriculture first appeared, probably in ancient southwestern Asia, and perhaps elsewhere, to increase food supplies to support an expanding population amid severe resource stress. Over time, however, along with the increase in dependence on domesticated crops, the overall insecurity of the food supply system has increased. Why?

Share of Domesticated Plants in Food

There are several reasons why early farmers became more and more dependent on cultivated plants. Farmers were able to use previously unsuitable land. When such vital necessities as water could be brought to the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the land for which wheat and barley are native, was able to grow them. Domesticated plants also provided more and more edible plants and were easier to harvest, process and cook. They also taste better. Rindos listed a number of modern food plants that have been developed from bitter wild varieties. Finally, the increase in the yield of domesticated plants per unit of land led to an increase in their proportion in the diet, even if wild plants were still used and were as available as before.
Dependence on Few Plants.
Unfortunately, dependence on increasingly fewer plants is risky when yields are poor. According to Richard Lee, the Bushmen living in the Kalahari Desert ate over 100 plants (14 fruits and nuts, 15 berries, 18 edible gums, 41 edible roots and bulbs, and 17 leafy vegetables, beans, melons and other foods) (1992). In contrast, modern farmers rely mainly on 20 plants, of which three - wheat, corn, rice - feed most of the world's people. Historically, there have been only one or two grain products for a specific group of people. The decline in the yield of these crops had disastrous consequences for the population.

Selective Breeding, Monocultures and Gene Pool

Selective breeding of any plant species reduces the variability of its gene pool, destroying its natural resistance to rare natural pests and diseases and decreasing its long-term chances of survival, increasing the risk of serious harvest losses. Again, many people depend on a particular plant species, risking their future. Monoculture is the practice of growing only one type of plant in a field. While this increases the efficiency of the crop, it also leaves the entire field unprotected from being destroyed by disease or pests. Hunger can be the result.

Increased Dependence on Plants

As cultivated plants began to play an increasing role in their nutrition, people became dependent on plants and plants, in turn, became dependent on humans, or more precisely, on the environment created by man. But humans cannot completely control the environment. Hail, flood, drought, pests, frost, heat, erosion and many other factors can destroy or significantly affect crops, all of which are beyond human control. The risk of failure and hunger increases.

Increase in the number of diseases

The increase in the number of diseases, especially associated with the evolution of domesticated plants, for which there were several reasons. First, before a sedentary lifestyle, human waste was removed outside the residential area. With the increase in the number of people living nearby in relatively permanent settlements, waste disposal became more and more problematic. Large amounts of faeces have led to the emergence of disease, and insects feed on animal and plant waste, some of which are carriers of diseases.
Secondly, the large number of people living nearby serves as a reservoir for pathogens. Once the population is large enough, the likelihood of transmission of the disease increases. By the time one person has time to recover from the disease, another can reach the infectious stage and infect the first one again. Therefore, the disease will never leave the settlement. The speed at which the common cold, flu, or chickenpox spreads among schoolchildren perfectly illustrates the interaction between dense populations and disease.
Thirdly, sedentary people cannot simply get away from the disease, on the contrary, if one of the gatherers gets sick, the rest can leave for some time, reducing the likelihood of the spread of the disease. Fourth, an agricultural diet can reduce disease resistance. Finally, population growth has provided ample opportunity for microbial development. Indeed, as discussed earlier in Chapter 3, there is good evidence that clearing land for farming in sub-Saharan Africa has created an excellent breeding ground for mosquitoes that transmit malaria, leading to a sharp increase in malaria cases.

Environmental degradation

With the development of agriculture, people began to actively influence the environment. Deforestation, soil degradation, clogging of streams, and the death of many wild species all accompany domestication. In the lower Tigris and Euphrates valleys, the irrigation waters used by the early farmers carried large amounts of soluble salts, poisoning its soil, thereby rendering it unusable to this day.

Increase Work

Growing domestication requires much more labor than gathering. People have to clear the land, plant seeds, take care of young shoots, protect them from pests, collect them, process the seeds, store them, choose seeds for the next sowing; in addition, people must take care and protect domesticated animals, select flocks, shear sheep, milk goats, and so on.

(c) Emily A. Schultz & Robert H. Lavenda, excerpted from the college textbook Anthropology: A Perspective on the Human Condition Second Edition.